Monday, July 30, 2007

Answers

And the answers to last week's quiz are:
  • Die Hard (1) is Piège de cristal (as the movie takes place is a skyscraper)
  • Die Hard 2: Die Harder is 58 minutes pour vivre ("58 minutes to live"), as the hero has 58 minutes to stop the bad guys, although the exact time doesn't have that much importance in the movie
  • Die Hard 3 - Die Hard with a Vengeance is Une journée en enfer ("A day in Hell")
  • Die Hard 4 - Live Free or die hard is Retour en enfer ("Back to Hell")
André wins the PIMs!

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Saturday, July 28, 2007

Quiz


Today, in celebration of the latest adventures of John McClane, try to match the 4 Die hard movies with their French titles:
1/ Une journée en enfer (literally "A day in Hell")
2/ Retour en enfer ("Back to Hell")
3/ 58 minutes pour vivre ("58 minutes to live")
4/ Piège de cristal ("Crystal trap")

First right answer gets a pack of PIMs

Monday, July 23, 2007

Clafoutis


un clafoutis (pronounced kla-foo-tee)= a desert made of fruit baked in batter - usually cherries, plums, apples or other berries.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Canard

un canard (the 'd' is silent) = a duck, also slang for newspaper (e.g. Le Canard Enchainé)

French ducks are now used for more than foie gras and other pâtés, as seen in the news today

And of course, as July 14th approaches, Happy Bastille Day to all! (Bon quatre Juillet!)

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Tuesday, July 10, 2007

La fuite

s'enfuir = to run away

E.g. "il s'est enfui à toutes jambes" or "il a pris ses jambes à son cou" = he ran away as fast as he could. (une) jambe = leg and (un) cou = neck, so that literally translates into "he took his legs to his neck"

la fuite = flight, escape. E.g. prendre la fuite = s'enfuir

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Sunday, July 01, 2007

Chouquettes

An impromptu visit to Financier, the local patisserie, last week ended up being a trip down memory lane. I hadn't seen chouquettes in years, so today's word is my personal equivalent of Proust's madeleine.

Une chouquette is a small puffy ball made out of choux pastry and topped with chunks of sugar. They're not that different from les pets-de-nonne (fritters) except the latter are deep-fried instead of baked. Interestingly, pet-de-nonne literally translates to "nun's fart". One story has it that pets-de-nonne are a culinary incident that happened when nuns started laughing when one of them farted, and accidentally dropped some dough in hot oil. I'd love to know the true meaning... this may even be worth a bag of chouquettes.